Prioritising land to be preserved for agriculture: A context-specific value tree

In Belgium as in many other countries, agricultural land is under pressure for development of other land uses. This paper presents a method for setting priorities for preservation of land for agriculture. The method is based on a participatory approach through which a value tree is formulated. This results in a list of criteria to define farmland value, which is explicitly linked to the objectives for farmland preservation. The value tree allows the list of criteria to be determined in a structured and consistent way. The participatory process contributes to the development of a shared vision on farmland preservation. The approach also incorporates context specificity, as shown by its application for farmland preservation in Flanders.     

Career mentoring in context: A multilevel study on differentiated career mentoring and career mentoring climate

This study explores how supervisor career mentoring contributes to contemporary organizational career development, which strives to foster employees' promotability while strengthening their intention to stay. Specifically, we focus on the implications of career mentoring in team contexts. Applying a multilevel framework, we distinguish between individual‐level differentiated mentoring (i.e., an employee's mentoring perceptions as compared to those of other team members) and group‐level career mentoring climate (i.e., the average perception across all group members). In a workplace setting, we collected data from vocational job starters (N ranged from 230 to 290) and their company supervisors (N ranged from 56 to 68). We find that career mentoring climate positively relates to promotability, more so than differentiated career mentoring. Both career mentoring climate and differentiated career mentoring are positively related to the intention to stay. At the individual level, this relationship is mediated by job satisfaction. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of differentiated and group‐level mentoring.     

Do satisfying walking and cycling trips result in more future trips with active travel modes? An exploratory study

Previous studies have indicated that travel satisfaction - the experienced emotions during, and cognitive evaluation of, a trip - can be affected by travel mode choice and other trip characteristics. However, as satisfactory trips might improve a person's attitude towards the used mode, persons may be more likely to use that same mode for future trips of the same kind. Hence, a cyclical process between travel mode choice and travel satisfaction might occur. In this paper we begin to analyse this process—using a structural equation modelling approach on cross-sectional data—for people who engage in walking and cycling for leisure trips in the Belgian city of Ghent. The focus on walking and cycling reflects recent studies indicating that active travel is often associated with the highest levels of travel satisfaction. Results of this exploratory analysis offer tentative support for the idea of a cyclical process: the evaluation of walking and cycling trips positively affects the respondents' attitude towards the respective mode, which in turn has a positive effect on choosing that mode.     

Why are REITS Currently So Expensive?

Over the last several years, the price of listed real estate stocks has been unusually high relative to dividends. I find that neither low interest rates nor low risk premia can account for the high valuation ratios. Lower interest rates have been offset by rising risk premia to keep expected returns close to average. Instead, the market has priced in future income growth on commercial properties far above the growth rates seen in the data. High implied growth rates are less extreme for nontraditional REIT sectors. Income growth expectations are also less extreme for international listed real estate.     

How middle managers manage the political environment to achieve market goals: Insights from China's state‐owned enterprises

Research summary: Although the middle management literature has identified various bridging roles performed by middle managers in the market environment, it is relatively vague about whether and how they manage the political environment to achieve market‐related goals. In an inductive field study of four large state‐owned enterprises based in mainland Communist China, operational middle managers were found to take an active role in dealing with political actors to achieve market efficiency in their local environments, performing two distinct bridging strategies. Our field study suggests that middle managers are better equipped than their bosses (top executives) as well as their subordinates (frontline employees) to perform the bridging function between competing market and political imperatives in various local settings. Managerial summary: For firms that operate in diverse geographies, it is challenging for a handful of top executives to deal with numerous political actors. This burden could be shared with operational middle managers, who play a bridging role by drawing on their operational knowledge and local networks. Our research on middle managers who work under the scrutiny of political actors in China found that they bridge market and political ideology by conveying common features that seem legitimate to both. They also bridge market goals and political actors with personal affect. Compared to top executives and frontline employees, middle managers have unique advantages in performing these bridging functions. Firms can enhance their strategy execution ability by training middle managers in dealing with political actors in diverse contexts. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

U.S. House Prices over the Last 30 Years: Bubbles,Regime Shifts and Market (In)Efficiency

This paper studies U.S. house prices across 45 metropolitan areas from 1980 to 2012. It applies a version of the Gordon dividend discount model for long‐run “fundamentals” and uses Mean Group and Pooled Mean Group estimation to estimate long‐run and short‐run determinants of house prices. We find great similarity across cities in that the long‐run house prices are largely explained by the same fundamentals; the long‐run rent to price ratio is approximately 5% plus 0.75 times the real interest rate (which is on the order of 2%). However, adjustments to deviations from the fundamentals are slow, in the long‐run, closing the gap at a rate of around 10% per year. We find sharp differences in short‐run adjustments (momentum) away from the fundamentals across cities, and the differences are correlated with local supply elasticities (more momentum with lower elasticity). Analysis of residuals suggests strong cyclical deviations, which are mean‐reverting.     

Farmland for tomorrow in densely populated areas

The paper describes the results of a research that aimed to come up with a well structured method to estimate future farmland requirements in densely populated areas. By using in depth interviews, scenario analysis and strategic orientation rounds, a method is developed to support policy optimization and to explore alternative future developments. The method is applied to the case of agriculture in the Flemish part of Belgium to show the feasibility of the model and to provide input for the discussion among policy makers in Flanders. The research results can be used by policy makers to build a new Spatial Plan Flanders for the period 2007–2013.     

Raising offtake from cattle grazed on natural rangelands in sub-Saharan Africa: a transaction cost economics approach

Farmers in sub‐Saharan Africa are constrained by large transaction costs associated with marketing of their livestock. However, transaction costs are often not taken into account in the analysis of factors hampering the development of livestock marketing in this region. This article empirically measures the influence of transaction costs on the offtake from cattle grazed on natural rangelands in Uganda. The study is based on the monitoring of 696 cattle transactions in three districts of Uganda from August 2004 to August 2005. The estimated models suggest that proportional transaction costs represented by the state of roads, distance to markets, and time taken to reach the market are important variables constraining market participation. In order to raise offtake from the national herd, it is essential to explicitly address these costs. One potential solution is collective action in marketing of livestock in which proportional and fixed transaction costs are reduced and shared among the group members.